On-farm food safety training for farm workers and underserved farmers covering FSMA PSR and GAPs requirement

The goal of this project is to provide on-farm food safety training to small and mid-sized farms and underserved farmers in Louisiana and Florida. This project aims to shift from conventional PowerPoint based training format to more interactive ways of training to create best learning opportunities and encourage growers to implement food safety practices. This program will provide a short (3h) on-farm training to farm workers on Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs), Good Handling Practices (GHPs), worker health and hygiene, sanitation, risk assessment, and Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule (PSR) requirements using hands on activities posters and flipcharts. Different tools and resources, including video series, risk assessment tools, standard operating procedures (SOPs) templates, factsheets, and recordkeeping logs, will be provided to cater to the operational requirements of the growers. The risk assessment tools will help growers assess their current operations, identify potential food safety hazards and risks in their operations, evaluate current food safety practices, and identify practices to be strengthened regarding GAPs/GHPs and FSMA requirements. The program consists of on-site audits to assess and assist the implementation of food safety practices. Considering the high number of Spanish-speaking farmers and farmworkers in Louisiana, and Florida, our goal is to offer training in both English and Spanish. This project will also help develop and strengthen the food safety program of two minority institution (FSMU and SU) by utilizing the experiences and resources from LSU AgCenter to reach out to socialy disadvantaged and underserved farmers.Objectives:Objective 1: Develop produce safety educational materials for farm workers using posters, flip charts and hands-on activities covering FSMA PSR and GAPs requirements.Evaluate Produce Safety Alliance (PSA) curriculum and educational materials, FDA guidance documents, and publications and resources from the clearing house that could be used for flip charts and hands-on activities.Review current scientific and LSU AgCenter's on-farm research results related to food safety and use the research findings to develop effective training.Develop interactive educational material and tools, including flip charts, videos, fact sheets, record-keeping logs, SOPs templates, and risk assessment tools catered to the operational requirements of the growers, and compile them with the inventory on the LSU AgCenter webpage and link with collaborating institute webpage.Translate the educational materials into Spanish languageObjective 2: Deliver on-farm food safety trainings to farm workers and underserved farmersOffer on-farm training in both English and Spanish to cater to the cultural diversity and language differences among the growers in the state of Louisiana and Florida.Conduct hands-on activities and risk-assessment and post-validation audits.Evaluate the impact of education and training programs.